Letter from a non-member

[lutzd]

We received the following letter from a non-member. Can anyone help them out?

"Dear sir/madam



My family and I live on a property west of Toowoomba, Qld. Recently we spotted a large snake that we were unable to identify between us. We were wondering if you could assist us by shedding some light on the identification of said reptile.



The snake was at least 6 feet (2 metres) long. It had a pale green-grey body with dark grey markings, and a pale belly. The most striking feature was its coppery-orange head. It appeared to have been feeding recently, judging by the circumference of parts of its body, possibly on rabbit kittens.



We would greatly appreciate your assistance in this matter, as its identity has us all completely stumped, and none of us has seen a snake like it before. We look forward to hearing from you soon.



Yours sincerely



Naomi"

 

[farmdog]

taipan???

 

[salebrosus]

I think i will have to go to the Harold Cogger bible to find that one.

Simone

 

[Herc]

could be anything, including a woma....
pics would make it easier to identify

 

[Brodie]

A taipan I would say, dunno where they got the dark grey markings from, though.

 

[nuthn2do]

One thing I know is that you cannot ID a snake without good pics or the snake itself. Could be a Woma, then again it could be a YF whipsnake

 

[Brodie]

Depends how far west the property was,

I have never seen a 6ft Yfwhipsnake

 

[Pike01]

Sounds like a woma to me.but i never trust peoples descriptions, could just as easily be a eastern brown

 

[olive]

6 feet isnt 2 meters

 

[Dicco]

Toowoomba is way to far east for Womas, only a bit more than an hour from Bris, I'm not sure if you find Tais there but don't take my word for that, my guess is a brown, or possibly a fairly large lesser black whipsnake, D. vestigiata(people can easily exadurate length).

 

[playwell]

I was thinking a black whipsnake, but maybe out of it's area.

Could guess for ever and still not know..

 

[Brodie]

Black Whips occur in that area, and sometimes they do get bigger than 6ft...

What has me confused is the gray markings

 

[Brodie]

Oh, and Naomi,

It is almost 100 percent certain that the snake you have seen is considered dangerous too humans. If you see the snake again, please do not approach it!

CHeers,

Brodie

 

[Ginajam01]

I'd be surprised if it's Tai I have family out there and know there are a lot of Browns in the very halthy weight range.

i'm only a new knob but so it probably don't ount as much of an opinion.

More often then not peoplev who say there's a 2metre snake out there find it's closer to1.5 or even 1 when it comes to the crunch.

People talk about snakes lie people talk about fish i reckon.
Cheers Jamie

 

[boconnor]

Possibly is a woma they did say west of toowoomba, don't know how far west though.

 

[Pike01]

you dont have to go that far west of toowoomba to get womas, or shinglebacks, Dalby, moonie area maybe

 

[AGAMIDAE]

VERY true Pike.....

 

[nuthn2do]

I have never seen a 6ft Yfwhipsnake

Quite a few of my 6ft brown calls have turn out to be 3-4 ft whipsnakes.
Pay no attention to quoted length cause most people have buckleys at estimating a snakes length when they're standing 20 meters away from it. :wink:

 

[Retic]

Actually 2 metres is as close to 6 feet that it doesn't matter, it's 6'6".

6 feet isnt 2 meters